With the grandparents

Today, my oil change ended up being an all day affair so my daughter ate her lunch of honey-roasted peanuts and raisins from the vending machine. We'll be headed to dinner soon with my wonderful parents. Not high cuisine, but the local diner.

Because the food at the diner is either good or makes you sick, I will not mention the name of the restaurant. If you eat often in the Poconos and need to know the name, email me. Or leave a comment. Last night I thought they had "chicken frances" as a special (that's what they call it.) But it was veal frances which I will not eat, so I made the last minute switch to an 8-0z NY strip steak. It was far from a great steak, but it was a low-end good, until I got home. I had steak and cheesecake and one of them did not agree with me.

My husband had their seafood, fettucine alfredo special. And he enjoyed it. Our daughter bypassed the kids' menu. She whips open the menu and points to a photo of fried fish. "I want that," she announces. Every time she selects something this way, she eats it. We explained the different fish and she chose shrimp in the basket. I also ordered cream of broccoli soup for her. At this diner, cream of broccoli soup also contains carrot.

Which brings me to a rant... As a baby, our daughter sat on my lap for all of our meals. It kept her happy to sit at the table and I learned to eat one-handed. At four months, she would steal my silverware. By five months, (thanksgiving to be exact), she learned to grab crumbs of food from my plate and put them in her month and eat them. The first time it happened, I was eating a broccoli omelette and she ate a bit of broccoli.  

Her first food post-cereal was puréed canned pumpkin I had leftover from a pie. Except for some vegetables (like green beans) I made all my own baby food... in crazy flavors. Like watermelon-orange-pineapple. Or spinach-carrot.

By seven months, we were chopping tiny bits of Chinese take-out or mild Indian food for her. Anyway, that's a topic for another day.

So the traditional kids menu of chicken nuggets and hamburgers does not interest my kid. But I never fed her these things so she doesn't know she's "supposed to" prefer them. My in-laws have my daughter convinced that chicken nuggets and French fries from Wendy's is her favorite meal. It's bull. My daughter believes this because she knows if she eats one chicken nugget and a couple fries (grrrr....) that my in-laws will give her a Frosty. (Which the chemical they use to make that synthetic milkshake crap causes cancer if you breath it. But it's safe to eat. I'm sorry but anything that fake, I'll pass. I like my milkshakes with... um, how about milk and ice cream? I hesitate to mention the name of the chemical because I only know it as the name it had at a place where I worked... They manufactured it and I got the "don't breathe it" lecture from a supervisor.)

End of month review

January certainly did not follow the typical pattern around here. I just reviewed the finances for January and unless I spend unforeseen amounts of money today, we ended up spending $162.53 on groceries and $151.01 on dining. Remember we had a house guest for close to three weeks, and that accounts for some of the cost. And last night I splurged and treated the family to dinner out. That was $37. The great thing is our pantry is not as depleted as usual. I even have enough beef in the freezer for a batch of stew. I have lots of frozen veggies (even artichoke hearts), lots of sauce and plenty of noodles. 

I did not bring the camera last night so you don't get to see the feast we enjoyed. We went to MexTex Trio, a fabulous restaurant in downtown Easton. We've been there four times now (and if our finances were better we would probably be there once or twice a month.) They have a kids menu that includes chicken breast and spanish rice, or quesadilla, or tacos/burritos. We tried the chicken breast. We've tried several of the option and our daughter prefers the Nachos de Rey off the appetizer menu. It's enough to feed an army, so we usually share.

Since MexTex had some technological issues, we had to pay with cash. That meant my husband had to walk to the MAC machine. And it meant there was no wiggle r

oom in the budget for the evening. We had $50.

My husband offered to share nachos with our daughter. I ordered a round of hot chocolate for us. It's $2.50 a cup but man is it incredible. And I teased it was dessert, and we were having it first. (And since my husband got to walk several blocks in the cold it seemed a nice treat to warm him.) I couldn't decide what I wanted so I ordered a chicken quesadilla with a side of spanish rice and a side of fried beans. Then we shared everything. The bill came to $3o.15. I added a $7 tip. We all left full.

I hate to do an entry without a photo, so this is a photo of the fritos and dip we had the other day. The dip was an organic ranch mix that you add to sour cream. It was the first time I tried it, and being me, I added It's a dilly to give it some zing. The family loved it. That little cup was all I made, just enough for a little snack for each of us.

Picnic Lunch: Tuna melts and orange-mango smoothies

You can always recognize a good cookbook in someone's kitchen. It's dirty, warped and maybe even unidentifiably sticky. I have Italian cookbooks, Chinese cookbooks, vegan cookbooks, vegetarian cookbooks, French cookbooks, chocolate cookbooks, casserole cookbooks, even a pasta cookbook.

Nava Atlas' The Vegetarian 5-ingredient cookbook is one of those tomes that is on its way to dirty stickiness. I don't actually use it that often, but after flipping through it looking for the orange creamsicle smoothie recipe this morning... Well, there are several recipes that piqued my interest that I had never noticed before. I love that every recipe is five ingredients (or less.) I think that speaks well to the harried nature of our lives and blends with a "this is what I've got on hand" situation.

I "got hungry" for Atlas' smoothie when I bought those YoBaby smoothies the other day and made the wisecrack that I knew I could make them at home. And they'd taste better. And I knew making them (with the blender, the blender!) would thrill my daughter. So, we made the smoothies and packed them with hot sandwiches for my daughter's picnic with Daddy. (I have class Tuesday and Thursday 11:00 to 12:15 p.m.)

Smoothies first...

Orange-Vanilla Creamsicle Smoothie

makes one to two servings (I automatically double.)

From Nava Atlas' 5-ingredient Vegetarian Gourmet

In blender combine (or stir if you want a lumpier consistency):

1. 1 cup fresh orange juice
2. 1/2 cup low fat vanilla yogurt
3. 1/4 cup seltzer or sparkling water (optional)
4. dash of vanilla extract (optional)
5. ice (optional)

I did not have any "bubbles" on hand, so we skipped them. And I added probably less than 1/4 cup mango sorbet. And doubled the orange juice and yogurt. As expected, it was a hit.

For the entrée of this lunch, I toasted English muffins, added some cheddar cheese and melted it, and then piled on the tuna (which I make with Nayonnaise because I think mayonnaise is nasty). I popped the lid on and wrapped the hot little sandwiches in foil with the home of getting them to my husband warm. When I asked if I succeeded, he shrugged. An attempt at portable hot lunch, when you're on a tight schedule is not worth the effort and stress. But it was fun for today.

Recycling

This may look suspiciously similar to the Cashew Pork with Pea Pods/Pork with Apricots from the other night but it's not (quite). I made more of the orange juice-based sauce, made more veggies, and threw in the leftovers from the pork and the pineapple from our daughter's snack the other day. I served with mini egg rolls and while it was very similar to the original (Sunday) I used slightly different seasonings since I ran out of ginger. We had mango sorbet for dessert. My father-in-law had stuck the mango sorbet in the freezer a while ago...

Snow Day Cocoa

homemade granola, chocolate covered raisins and some rich mint cocoa, from Jill's Jams I think. One of these days I'll make my own. I have a fabulous and seductive recipe for hot chocolate that can also be served cold. The trick is buying good quality European bittersweet chocolate.

Artichoke and black olive pizza

With five inches of snow and rain getting it all wet, I surprised my family with a hot breakfast of scrambled eggs and English muffins when my husband came in from shoveling. My daughter had just gone out to play. My husband could not avoid going to work, as apparently he is essential these days since the students are still buying textbooks...

My daughter and I made black olive and artichoke heart pizza. The artichoke hearts were an impulse buy at Wegmans. I have already detailed my pizza making process (click on pizza below). I thought I'd treat my readers to some "how-to" style photos. My four-and-a-half year old is doing the work.  

This meal was originally intended as lunch tomorrow, but with the snow it gave us something to do. I also needed to use up some tomato sauce that had hung around my fridge too long.

Peorogies with spinach and feta & roasted red pepper tomato soup

My daughter had one of those hollow leg days, where she eats and eats and eats.

 When I had a yogurt, she ate half. She ate half her daddy's banana, then a ton of broccoli, then most of her peanut butter sandwich. When we got home, about an hour later, she ate half my leftover pork with apricots and one mini-egg roll.

Since my lunch had been pilfered, I poured some of this cajun trail mix I bought at Aldi. She ate half that too. I normally make my own trail mix (not as yummy as Gayle's), but this big bag was $3 and I liked that it was spicy, something different for the old taste buds.

During my site visit to Northeast Middle School, one of the girl's shared her potato chips with my daughter about half (if not more) of the single serving bag.

For dinner, I made Pacific Foods organic tomato and roasted red pepper soup with parmesan goldfish and Wegmans spinach and feta peorogies with sour cream. They were incredible!!!!!